Dave and Robert Mackey, crossword puzzle constructors and tournament competitors, and their puzzle schedules.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

ACPT 2009 - B Finals

Right to left we have Katz, Feyer, and Len. Since we have two Dans, we're going to call em by their last names. Hope they don't mind. Feyer will have a large head start, :50 over Katz and an additional :05 over Len.

Neal Conan is back on mike this year with Merl. Welcome back, Neal. Hopefully they can say funny stuff that we can tell you about this year. Will did mention that this year, the white noise is on iPods for the first time.

Feyer begins. "It's a beautiful day for a crossword puzzle tournament!" "LET'S PLAY TWO!" Food Network cameras are starting to catch this action as well. Feyer is scattershotting the grid. Katz and Len begin. Katz is working the upper left very rapidly. Len is working on the middle. Feyer has maybe 60% of the puzzle done in less than 4 minutes. Katz and Len are working bottom left. Feyer has most of the left side done so far. No one has made any errors thus yet. Katz has a stray "A" in the upper right. Len's doing quite well on the bottom of the puzzle. If I say "Dan" you'll know who I mean. Feyer just has upper right to do at this point. Katz has significantly more squares to put in. "I've been rehearsing my adlibs all morning," says Conan. Feyer is rapidly finishing. Feyer is checking his completed grid and signals done. Katz is headed to a solid second and Len is lagging behind with a lot of the top still to do. Katz signals doe with about 12:48 left on the clock. It's down to Len now, finishing up to the top. "So you think constructors have an advantage here." "No." "Why?" "Weren't the C finalists all non-constructors?" Len finishes at about 11:00.

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The Puzzle Brothers are currently on hiatus from construction. Crosswords by Dave Mackey appear regularly in New York Times anthologies. Crosswords by Robert Mackey appear in Los Angeles Times anthologies.